That day in 2018, in prison in Kentucky, the guards warned King that the white supremacists wanted to gravely harm him. They asked him if he felt safe. King chose the answer that he believed would come with fewest repercussions. “Yes, I feel safe,” he said, according to the lawsuit.
“At that point,” the lawsuit claims, the correctional officers told King “he could leave, but directed him to exit through a different door than the one through which he entered.” King walked through the door. “[H]e realized that, rather than being in a hallway or a public space on his way back to his cell, he had entered into an enclosed, locked outdoor area. Inside this room was a prisoner known to be a member of the aforementioned gang.”
The white supremacist — who dwarfed the 5-foot-7, slightly built King — attacked the anti-fascist. The guards did nothing to intervene. King had, he felt, been trapped by correctional officers colluding with white supremacist gang members. Following the reported assault, King received a disciplinary citation for fighting.
King claims the incident was a part of an ongoing pattern of harassment and violence that he has endured in recent years at the hands of the Bureau of Prisons. The Civil Liberties Defense Center, a legal nonprofit organization, filed the civil suit on his behalf, alleging that his “constitutional rights have been continually violated since 2018 in retaliation for his political and anti-racist actions while incarcerated.”
